To chill or not
"My dear girl, there are some things that are just not done, such as drinking Dom Perignon ‘53 above the temperature of 38° Fahrenheit." --- James Bond in Ian Fleming’s movie ‘Goldfinger’.
In my time at the hotel school I recall certain classic rules regarding wines, such as the advice to serve red wine at room temperature. We never asked the question, “What does room temperature actually mean? Because in those halcyon days; haute cuisine pointed towards France where the temperature during summer hovered around 16 – 20 Centigrade. We never gave thought to places that have a warm climate such as Argentina or Dubai, where a decent bottle of Shiraz will definitely lose its lustre when served in the mid-30’sC.
Nowadays wine sellers in several countries pour the red from a temperature controlled chiller unit. So, the rule books which we followed blindly have been thrown out – to adopt what works. It all depends on where you live and what time of year it is.
Modern day wine experts recommend that it is now alright to chill red wines so long as one knows which ones can do with some ‘time out’ in the refrigerator and which ones don’t. One expert summed it up by saying “As a rule of thumb, the cheaper and/or simpler the red wine, the more it will benefit from being served cool or chilled”.
Another goes on to say” Wines with modest alcohol levels tend to be more thirst-quenching by their very nature, so as a rule, the lower the alcohol the better”. I reckon it makes sense. Because on a really hot day, and when yearning for a drink to quench my thirst, I’ll like something really chilled – The metaphorical equivalent of standing under a powerful waterfall after a long, steep hike in the Sahara desert. But what if there was only red wine available?
According to connoisseurs of wines, good summer reds should be served at 16 – 18 degrees Centigrade (60 – 65 degrees F). I’m guessing here that good summer refers to the quality of the wine, rather than the temperature in summer, given that the US and mainland Europe are currently experiencing record –setting blistering hot temperatures and heat waves that range between 38 – 40 degrees C.
Someone said “Compromises are for relationships, not wine.” Think again. Drinking some red wines unchilled in such warm weather may make it taste soupy (Too much heat can literally cook your wine, making it less fruity and more like a yucky grape stew). Better to pop that bottle into the refrigerator, for about 30 minutes. So, into the refrigerator she goes.
If you cannot wait that long, then toss in 3 - 4 cubes of ice to lower the temperature rapidly. What the….? I hear you, who wants to dilute a wine? But it is a lot humane to the wine than drinking it when it’s very warm; for the reasons explained above. If it still makes you a tad uncomfortable, fish out the ice cubes to reduce dilution.
When you chill a red wine, some flavours are muted while others are enhanced. Fruity flavours become more apparent, while the bitter compounds such as tannins shut down. On the other hand, chill too much and the wine can taste disjointed and incomplete.
At the end of the day, as someone neatly put it “There’s no perfect art to cooling down a red - finding your ideal chill will take a little experimentation and people should enjoy their wine at whatever temperature they want…and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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